in the land of meadows and paths (the we came home mix)
by sarsaparillia
Summary: I thought you were dead. — Dave/Jade.


**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Victory.  
**notes**: this was supposed to be epic-long, but then I got bored.

**title**: in the land of meadows and paths (the we came home mix)  
**summary**: I thought you were dead. — Dave/Jade.

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The whole thing was that after they won, they were supposed to _start over_. They were supposed to get another chance to get this shit right, supposed to find their guardians and their friends and be together forever because that's the whole thing about saving the world.

They were supposed to _win_.

The fucked up thing is that they actually do.

They win.

And John is standing there with a hammer three times the size of his head, grinning like a moron, and Rose is actually _smiling_, and Jade is—she's laughing and she's beautiful with her hair everywhere and she's—she's—

Disappearing.

She's fucking disappearing.

It's all he can do not to panic.

"Harley!"

Dave dives to catch the dregs of the Witch of Space; her skirt is universes hidden in the ruffles, petticoats like stars and sand beneath his fingertips as she slips away from them all.

John goes next, turned intangible as his element, and Rose, too. They both disappear so fast Dave doesn't even have time to get their strangled names out of his throat. All he catches is a shit-eating grin off of John and a slightly tipsy wink-wonk from Rose, and then—

Then they're gone.

A shaft of light and the memory of a kiss against his cheek on the breeze, and Dave is all alone.

He breathes in, breathes out—the clock is counting, counting, five four three two one, and this is how Time works, Dave gets Time—closes his fists twice.

And then he's disappearing, too. He can see through his own fucking hands, and wow, this is so unbelievably shitty. Fear choked up in his throat, clawing, sticking in his craw and he's so mad he could spit fire, heat, clockwork—

And he thinks, then:

_We didn't fucking win at all_.

—

"Dave? Dave, wake up! Hey, coolkid, wake _up_!"

When he opens his eyes, the light is too bright; he's half-blind, starry-eyed, too dazzled to see. Eyes shut fast, and the sound that comes out of his mouth is the dust of eons, tastes of dirt, grainy wrong against his tongue. It is barely human at all.

"Glasses, fuck—"

"You're such a baby," the voice says. Laughs softly, like it knows him.

Soft little hands curl on his face, cool metal against the bridge of his nose. Dave opens his eyes again. The shades filter out the world and there—there is Jade Harley in all her buck-toothed, mad-haired glory.

But she isn't smiling.

Her face is drawn, eyes gone dark and low-lashed. There are lines across her forehead that Dave doesn't remember ever being there before. Jade holds onto his face like he is salvation and sin all at once. Like she has nothing left.

"There you are, coolkid," she says, too soft.

What the fuck is wrong with this picture.

(Besides everything, that is.)

"Jegus fuck, Harley—" Dave says. His voice is rough as sandpaper, like he hasn't spoken in an age. Jade's hands are a cool benediction on his face.

"I thought you were dead," she whispers. Dips her forehead down so they're forehead to forehead. Her lips form words that Dave doesn't know, that she doesn't say. "You didn't move, and I thought you were dead."

"Watched you go," he croaks. "John 'n Rose, too."

"I know," she says. "Oh god, I know."

She's still in her God outfit, dark fabric rumpled along her waist, skirt pulled up high on her thighs. The ears are gone. Dave reaches for the top of her head, muscles screaming in protest. It takes him three point eight-two seconds to dredged up the energy to speak again.

(He still knows that. He still knows.)

"Where's everyone else, Harley?"

Her face goes tight around the lips, gaze gone hard like neon and just about as bright behind her glasses. He barely recognizes her—she is young and old all at once, nebulas in her mouth, black holes in her eyes to suck in the entire sky.

This is the God in her, then.

"Gone," she says.

"Where are we?"

"Gone," she says again.

Yes, this is the God.

She skitters out of his lap, skims off her dress. It bunches in her hands

—

"Hey, hey, coffee, coolkid. Want some?"

"Where the fuck did you find coffee?" Dave gets out, that first morning. He hasn't slept, hasn't slept at all, feels like a ten-ton truck just rolled over him for shits and giggles, then rolled over him again for good measure. Fuck, he was almost dead. Like Karkat and his screeching, his goddamn hot little hands, nubby horns, and Jade—

Jade is a mess of early morning girl who just got fucked: her hair is everywhere, loose in echo-long waves all down her back, grubby green shorts and grubbier black tank. Her cup is white ceramic, her coffee is black as shoe polish and probably just about as sweet.

She looks at him with eyes green like summer behind cracked glasses, and she doesn't hold out.

"I'm magic," she says. "Witch, remember?"

"Witchy, witchy, little bitchy," Dave quips, because it is too fucking early for this kind of bull. He's chill as a motherfuck. _Chiller_ than a motherfuck, cold as ice, cold as winter, cold as the dead silence outside the meteor's atmosphere.

But.

The dark circles underneath her eyes accuse him, whisper:

_we lived through a war we live through a war we live a war we war we __**war**_

The cadence is sloppy-sick like Pearl Jam on fire, spinning all up in his worst nightmares. Shit, that goddamn tune never did fill a bucket.

"Rude!" she squeals. The coffee sloshes everywhere. No one says a thing. "Shut up and drink, it'll make you feel better. Universe travels fucks with your balance, 'member?"

"Yeah," he says. Steals her cup. Slurps.

(He was right about the coffee, though. Shit's bitterer than Rose.)

The caffeine jitters through him, shakes him all up. Jade sprawls on the floor, all long tanned limbs and salt-rime hair spread out across the dirt. She's a shimmering feral beast, grinning widely at the sky through the holes in the ceiling, teeth bared deadly sharp.

"We could go swimming," she says. He watches her run her hands through her hair. Dave watches her chest as she breathes, because she's it, fuck, she is _fucking it_.

Wait, no, she's not fucking it, that came out wrong; through he kind of (silently, secretly, unironically) wishes that she was.

He reaches over, hesitating and shaking, still shaking, what the fuck, Strider, get your shit together, fuck's sake. Touches her shoulder, her hair—she's real, he always fucking forgets that she's real.

"—coolkid? Coolkid, you in there?"

Dave coughs.

"God, you're such a junkie," she says. There's something tooth-rot melancholy in it, something tooth-rot sweet, held gentle like a flower in her mouth. It makes him think of that last day, before time's _spin-tick-tick_ left him; before Rose flittered on the edges of his consciousness weak as a butterfly; before John's stupid goddamn windy thing went and blew them all away.

Ashes to ashes, dust to fucking dust.

Her hands on the sides of his face bring him back.

"Shoosh," she says. "Shoosh, Dave, shoosh!"

She doesn't say his name very often. He would laugh at the irony of it if his throat wasn't so goddamn dry. Shooshing, she sounded like Karkat on one of his weirdass pale-benders. The fact that he remembers this makes it real, realer than real, real as Harley's ocean-knotted hair through his fingers.

"Harley, what the—what the fuck even—"

She's in his lap, then, again; she's a hot little ball of ozone-girl with frost and universe frogs in her eyes. She pulls the shades away _fuck why you gotta like that_ and closes his eyes, old habit; the sun fucking burns. Looks him in the eyes, her hair waterfall beautiful around them. He thinks:

_tick tick tick light and rain rose wind and shade john tick tick tick __**tick**_

"You need to stop," she says. "You're killing yourself."

And he is. He is.

"We're gods now, coolkid," her whisper burns through him, hips ground flush against him. "We are god, and gods die the same as everyone else."

"Harley," he moans, fucking _moans_, all heat all need all want want wanting her the way he always wanted her, always, forever fucking harley she's gonna be the fucking death of him—

"Oh, Dave," she murmurs, shaking her head. "You really _are_ a junkie."

"Yeah, yeah, I am, fuck, I am, Harley, Jade, Jade, watched 'em fade, can't feel shit no more, can't feel shitall, fuckin, fuckin, fuckin, fuckin," he doesn't even breathe, doesn't realize he rhymes, doesn't think of Bro-Dirk-Bro, all the family he's got is wrapped around him a little ball of heat and spacetime shredded all up with confetti and sugar stars. This is a goddamn anime in the making, and he wants to be sick.

(He is actually the opposite of cool, what.)

"Stop," she croons. "Stop."

"Can't," he says. It sounds like a prayer.

"I know," Jade smiles. "Try for me, okay?"

"Harley—"

Her mouth descends.

—

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_fin_?


End file.
